m behind it, used exclusively by Dr. West.

Seated on the counter, pounding desperately away at something in a
mortar, as if his life depended on it, was a peculiar-looking gentleman
in shirt-sleeves. Very tall, very thin, with legs and arms that bore the
appearance of being too long even for his tall body, great hands and
feet, a thin face dark and red, a thin aquiline nose, black hair, and
black prominent eyes that seemed to be always on the stare--there sat
he, his legs dangling and his fingers working. A straightforward,
honest, simple fellow looked he, all utility and practicalness--if there
is such a word. One, plain in all ways.

It was Janus Verner--never, in the memory of anybody, called anything
but "Jan"--second and youngest son of Lady Verner, brother to Lionel.
_He_ brother to courtly Lionel, to stately Decima, son to refined Lady
Verner? He certainly was; though Lady Verner in her cross moods would
declare that Jan must have been changed at nurse--an assertion without
foundation, since he had been nursed at home under her own eye. Never in
his life had he been called anything but Jan; address him as Janus, or
as Mr. Verner, and it may be questioned if Jan would have answered to
it. People called him "droll," and, if to be of plain, unvarnished
manners and speech is to be droll, Jan decidedly was so. Some said Jan
was a fool, some said he was a bear. Lady Verner did not accord him any
great amount of favour herself. She had tried to make Jan what she
called a gentleman, to beat into him suavity, gracefulness, tact, gloss
of speech and bearing, something between a Lord Chesterfield and a Sir
Roger de Coverley; and she had been obliged lo give it up as a hopeless
job. Jan was utterly irreclaimable: Nature had made him plain and
straightforward, and so he remained. But there was many a one that the
world would bow down to as a model, whose intrinsic worth was poor
compared to unoffending Jan's. Lady Verner would tell Jan he was
undutiful. Jan tried to be as dutiful to her as ever he could; but he
_could not_ change his ungainly person, his awkward manner. As well try
to wash a negro white.

Lady Verner had proposed that Jan should go into the army, Jan (plain
spoken as a boy, as he was still) had responded that he'd rather not go
out to be shot at. What _was_ she to do with him? Lady Verner peevishly
asked. She had no money, she lamented, and she would take care Jan was
not helped by Mr. Verner. To make him